The Weigh Station

Are you an emotional eater?

Is your best friend, Häagen-Dazs ice cream or Little Debbie cakes? Do you snuggle up at night with a bag of potato chips, M&Ms or a candy bar welcoming the solitude so you can eat with another uninterrupted food spree? If you see yourself in any of these situations you’re emotional eater (a person who eats in response to their feelings).

The question you need to ask yourself is why am I an emotional eater? When the most comforting thought in your head are the candy bars stashed in your desk drawer, and you know that you have a problem. Why do you continue?

Food, like tobacco and alcohol or drugs can be an addiction and it can be your drug of choice. In particular, quick and easy, high carbohydrate, high sugar foods are addicting because they numb feelings with the surge of glucose in the insult of insulin. When life gets too stressful, boring or intense.. food can become the emotional anesthetic. It makes you feel better for so many different reasons.

Emotional eating protects people from tensions and worries as strange as it may sound or seem. Emotional eating can be calming; it “works “for at least a short course of time. That’s why it’s such a difficult cycle to break for most people. The emotional facts are that it often is easier and less upsetting to be angry at yourself. Perhaps you are afraid of the feelings of disruption, loneliness or abandonment that can come with being angry at a significant other in your life.

Often an upsetting feeling can be transferred into an emotional eating binge, though the distraction of food, repetitive chewing and swallowing, and excessive food thoughts, intense feelings are redirected into eating or overeating behaviors. These behaviors tend to be psychologically safer than the confrontations you have with someone you love, which might cause conflict in your home. Such as arguments, disharmony or withdrawals from family/friends.

The first step in breaking the emotional cycle of eating and overeating is to find out what things trigger that cycle. Often, this is not an easy thing for you to do. You have to be a bit of a detective to look for the cues that any time you find yourself needing or wanting to overeat or deviate.

The best way to do this is to look for cues……Make a Cue Sheet

I’ll give you some examples at the end of this article. Hunger will have little or nothing to do with it… you will probably feel terrible about yourself afterwards.

Food is a dangerous anesthetic, to cure your emotional eating. You need to bear some of the discomfort….. The discomfort of an argument or the discomfort of someone disconnecting with you.. The alternative harmony is only obtained through your silence in the act of swallowing your true feelings along with a large list of food.

Everybody wants a loving, accepting relationship. But real life is more complicated. Relationships between friends and family are prickly and not smooth. The price tag of a smooth relationship is one that allows for failure, growth, encouragement and a loving relationship.

We here at The Weigh Station want you to feel comfortable sharing with us your episodes of not eating correctly, your emotional eating, and your failures. By expressing these problems. You may feel better about yourself. This program was designed as a Christ centered, weight management practice. We want the best for every patient who walks through the door.

How to Stop Emotional Eating

1, Record the Emotional over Eating or Eating Episode on the Cue Sheet

2. Find the Situation and Interactions That Directly Precede It.

3 Find the Association with Each Preceding Interaction until You Discovered the Emotional Cause for Your Eating.

4. Permit Yourself to Be Upset about Your Feelings to the Situation or the Person That Has Caused You

distress.

5. And Choose Alternative Behavior Other Than Eating Such As, Exercise, Reading, Walking, or Some Sport That You Enjoy.

Please let us help you work through any of these situations that may be involved in your weight gain or your static weight over the last few months. There’s not a day that goes by that someone doesn’t ask us what am I doing wrong. A lot of people eating is mindless, and we know that. Please feel free to tell your story to anyone that works with us at The Weigh Station.

Chuck Shaffer MD

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